Local flukes

Whaling matters to some places in Japan, but is hardly a national tradition

IN THE harbour town of Taiji people have family names like Kaji (literally, ironsmith), Tomi (look-out) and Amino (net): you get the idea. Taiji has been organising whale hunts ever since locals made breakthroughs 400 years ago in harpoon technology and in the use of nets to slow down whales migrating along this rocky coast. Yoji Kita, a town official, pulls out an Edo-era (1603-1868) painting that shows villagers at sea using ladders to scale a slaughtered right whale. Mr Kita's own great-grandfather was one of the few survivors of a village catastrophe when, at a time of great hunger, most of Taiji's men went out in pursuit of a right whale and her calf, and an offshore storm blew up. On this coast old stone monuments appease the spirits of dead whales.

ReutersWhale-wading in Wada

Most parts of the world may have abandoned it, but whaling continues in Taiji and in Wada, east of Tokyo. In each port float a brace of fast, efficient whalers. Throughout the summer, Wada brings in 26 Baird's beaked whales, measuring around ten metres (33 feet). These are cut up on the town slipway and their meat sold at dawn to housewives and local traders. In Taiji a hunt for short-finned pilot whales begins in September. The town also has regular dolphin culls. The animals are herded into a particular cove and slaughtered (with some spared and sold at high prices to aquariums). The dolphin-killing outrages Western environmentalists, who Mr Kita says come to Taiji to get moral kicks at the expense of locals' long-established ways (though some Taiji folk admit to discomfort about the slaughter).

Coastal whaling for smaller cetaceans falls outside the purview of the International Whaling Commission (IWC), which manages whale stocks (though, perversely, minke whales, which are managed, are smaller than Baird's beaked ones). In 1986 a moratorium went into effect on most types of whaling, to protect devastated stocks. At the commission's annual meeting in May, Japan threw a hissy fit when its request for the resumption of coastal whaling for bigger species was turned down. As it is, Japan kills hundreds of larger whales each year, mainly in Antarctic waters, in the name of “research”, which is allowed under IWC rules. A number of the crew on the long-distance whalers come from Taiji and Wada, whose supermarket shelves are laden with whale meat. Children eat it once a month at local schools. If you like your beef nicely greased and on the chewy side, you would probably like whale.

Whaling shapes the way a handful of communities such as Taiji and Wada see themselves, but right-wing politicians from the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) claim that restrictions on it are an attack on Japan's national identity. This is overdoing things. The boom in consumption came only with the American occupation after the second world war, when whale meat was a cheap source of protein for a malnourished country. That hastened the collapse in whale stocks, which led to the moratorium.

Since then, consumption of whale (and dolphin) meat has dropped sharply, partly because of the moratorium, and partly because health concerns have grown. Some whale meat has levels of environmental toxins (including mercury) that some scientists say are dangerously high, particularly for children and pregnant women. Mr Kita admits to the problem in Taiji's dolphins, whose internal organs are not sold for consumption. You might think the LDP would be looking into such health concerns. But politicians are too busy huffing and puffing about leaving the IWC so Japan can go a-whaling at will.